


Want S’more?

by tafih



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Camp Counselor AU, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Korrasami - Freeform, Meta Shipping Wars, Team Avatar (LOK) are campers, The Gaang are counselors, Zutara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-15 09:38:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19293094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tafih/pseuds/tafih
Summary: Korra is pretty sure her camp counselors are screwing. She doesn’t know who exactly, but some of them are and she’s going to find out who.(She also might have a crush on someone and that just sucks so she’s distracting herself).





	1. Chapter 1

Tui La Lake is a large and pristine body of water nestled deep in the cool countryside of your preferred Northern continent. Home to the indigenous Water Tribe, Tui La is the best spot to indulge in some tranquil retreats, as long as you don’t visit in the summer. Because during the summer, Tui La accommodates three different summer camps for youths from around the world - the Zaofu Science and Technology Camp, the Northwest Fire Scouts Base, and Camp Avatar.

Korra absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it, freaking _loves_ Camp Avatar.

At school and home, she needs to be on her “best behavior” which is just adult-speak for “don’t do anything fun” and it sucks - it sucks so much.

But at camp - _oooh,_ at camp - Korra gets to indulge in every wild and inane impulse that crosses her mind. For the past three years, she’s always been assigned to Cabin Koda and has always had Katara NiaKotik as her camp counselor.

Now, she is part of the high school track. (Since she’s a high schooler now - hell yeah!)

This summer is going to be awesome.

Yet, the absolutely very best most awesome part of camp is the Intramural Camp Championships - a three-day tournament in which all the camps come together and engage in some “friendly” competition. Its crowning event, of course, is the Counselor Pieing Contest (Yes, it’s not the “Pie-eating” contest since they don’t eat the pies).

Then the counselors shower and the last day ends with an ice-cream social/dance where everyone dresses up and dances in the huge air-conditioned atrium at Zaofu. Well, the dance part is only for the high school track so it’s the first time she’ll get to go.

The counselors let everyone skip out on curfew that night and just fool around since everyone heads back home the next day. Everyone lets loose a bit, even the faculty - since it’s the last day of camp season for them too.

But that isn’t what concerns Korra about the counselors.

 _Oh no_ , she’s thinking about one thing when it comes to them.

“They are totally screwing and HARD - I just need to find out who,” she says, as if colluding on a great and auspicious secret, after relaying her experience coming down from Wan Peak and hearing some _intriguing_ sounds.

“Korra...that’s...that’s inappropriate,” Bolin whimpers from across the table at the mess hall. “And how can you be _that_ sure?”

Bolin is in the Kuruk cabin - the brother cabin to hers. A few years back, he had started off in the Fire Scouts, and even though he could do everything and earned badges and stuff, he felt like it wasn’t a good fit. So then he went to Zaofu for one summer and _really_ felt like it was not a good fit. And eventually ended up at Camp Avatar where he met Korra and things clicked.

Korra thinks Bolin might be her best friend. But then he has to get all goody-two-shoes on her. She firmly believes it’s all because of _Counselor Aang_ , the _goodiest_ goody-two-shoes of all Camp Avatar history.

“I know what I heard, Bolin,” she insists in a seething whisper, bending over the table to contain their conspiracy to just the two of them. “And I know that whatever was going on, it wasn’t PG-13.”

“What were you doing out that late anyway?” he questions, with a bit of a pout in his lips and some red in his cheeks.

The trajectory of her potatoes-covered spoon reaching her open mouth falters a bit.

“I…” she begins, then thinks better of her answer and says, “Asami said it was gonna be a clear night so we snuck out and went to the observatory.”

Which is true. _Just not the whole truth._

“And you didn’t tell _me_?” Bolin asks, scandalously hurt and even though Korra’s used to his guilt-trips, she still feels a bit guilty because she definitely isn’t telling him everything.

But he doesn’t need to know the weird stupid feelings she feels when she ends up watching Asami more than the stars. She missed _four_ shooting stars because of her stupid, stupid stupidity.

So she rolls her eyes and huffs. “It was a girls-only thing, Bolin, don’t let it get to you.”

“But you and Asami have been hanging out a lot. It feels like I’m being replaced.”

Her mouth twitches. “Don’t be stupid, Bolin. And I do not hang out with Asami that much,” she retorts.

“Yeah, you do. Every time we have Friday Free Hour, you walk to Zaofu or she comes here.”

A shrug passes through her shoulders and she mutters, “I guess.” She pokes at her mashed potatoes for a bit and lets Bolin marinate in the silence until he inevitably fills it with something inane.

After a beat, and on cue, Bolin goes, “So wanna go to the archery range today before kayaking?”

_There we go._

She grins at him. She leans over with a sudden swell of confidence, and challenges, “I bet you your blue lanyard that I get there before you do.” Then she scarfs down her potatoes and meatloaf in three bites, stands up, and rushes to the tray return before Bolin can protest and run after her.  

* * *

When their cabin groups finished kayaking and Counselor Aang guided a few boys to the docking shed to put all the paddles and kayaks away, Counselor Katara announces that the lists for the ICC events have been confirmed. She also announces that the Full Moon Festival will coincide with the High School ICC and all three camps will be participating to some degree.

Now _that_ is news to Korra.

“So typically, the ICC will span over three days to cover all the events. But for this year, we’re actually dedicating the entire week to it and inviting the local community to watch and participate as well,” Counselor Katara explains, her voice bright and heartening, as it always is.

By this time, Aang has returned and chimes in, with that upbeat and cheery personage, “It’s going to be a lot of fun, with all the festival booths and events happening at Omashu Stadium, and with the events spread out more, and it'll end with a huge bonfire! And because you are all in the high school track, you’ll be given a lot more free time to explore.”

“Which means that curfew is to be strictly held to,” Katara declares, affecting the disciplinarian role now that Aang is back to play Good-Cop.

 _Katara will probably make a good mom_ , Korra thinks to herself as she pulls out the tufts of grass scratching her thighs, and _Aang one of those fun weird uncles_.

Katara continues, “So we expect everyone to be back at the cabins by 10:00 PM. If anyone is late, you won’t get free time the next day and will have to hang out with me and Aang.”

That is punishment enough and the groans percolating throughout the group solidifies it as such.

Mira raises her hand high in the air and asks, “But are the lists put up yet?”

The counselors share a look then Aang says, “Yes, and you guys can head over there now to check it ou-”

With screams and yawps, all the kids jump up and rush towards the Mess Hall before he even finishes.

Korra is the first one at the huge corkboard lining the south-facing wall.

She scans the lists with inhuman speed.

As per the usual, Counselor Aang is listed as the Camp Avatar representative for the Counselor Pieing Contest along with Counselor Katara’s brother, Sokka as the representative counselor from Zaofu, and - to her surprise - Scoutmaster Zuko is the rep from the Fire Scouts.

“Wow,” she mutters, as her cabin-mates begin to crowd around her. “ _Zuko_ ’s in the Pie contest.”

“No way,” Mira reacts with the same amount of disbelief. “He wouldn’t.”

“But he is, look!” Korra returns, placing the tip of her finger right under SCOUTMASTER ZUKO printed on the sheet covered with copy-pasted pictures of pies.

“That’s going to be so weird,” Oskana snorts. “How come Hearth Leader Ty Lee isn’t doing it? She always does it.”

Korra shrugs. “Who knows but Mako was telling me that Scoutmaster Zuko has been... _dorky_ lately.” She shivers at the thought; it truly makes no sense for the notoriously temperamental figure of ferocity to be a dork. The universal laws of physics and life could not allow it.

“Yes!” Mira cheers with a formed fist, “I’m in the relay. Look, Korra, you’re on the Obstacle Course team this year,” she tells her, pointing up at the sheet.

The Obstacle Course was one of the few events with teams made up of campers from each camp - one from CA, one from the Fire Scouts, and the other from Zaofu.

Korra looks for her name, excitedly. The Obstacle Course is always her favorite event and it’s the only event she ever signs up for. Then she looks at her teammates’ names.

“I’m with Mako and Asami?” Korra asks quietly to the air as the hall begins to shudder with increasing volume.

“Yep,” Counselor Aang suddenly chirps from beside her. “Now that you’re in the high school track, they really wanted to-” then he catches her expression and quickly sobers. “Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just -” Korra begins, her face drawn to her shoes. “I didn't think I'd be put with Asami.”

“Is that a problem?” Aang questions carefully, gently leading her away from the crowd. They make it to the balcony outside and the sudden rush of pine and quiet calms Korra a bit as she muddles her way through her thoughts.

“It’s not that it’s a problem. It’s just that I see her a lot and she goes to my school and she’s just so -” Korra tosses her hair so that it flounces with exaggerated pep. “ _Pretty and popular._ It’s kind of annoying-” she ends with a groan.

“Oh...” Aang suddenly remembers the incident that the counselors labeled the “CRUSH CATASTROPHE” on an intercampus memo with the names of Korra, Asami, Mako and Bolin written underneath. In fact, Aang is pretty sure it’s still tacked onto the corkboard in the faculty office. That had been the year all four kids were forced to participate in different events and thankfully, with their age differences, they were in different tracks the following year anyways.

2016 was messed up in so many ways.

“You guys seem to get along now. And I’ve noticed her come around for F-2s. Did something happen?”

“Yeah, no, we’re friends but I-” the perfect explanation is revealed to her in a fit of inspiration. “I just don’t think we can be good teammates! Since it’s still...um…” Then the garnered momentum quickly dies.  

A beat.

“Weird?” he suggests.

“Yeah,” she admits, her voice quiet.

They hear a soft knock from behind him and, turning, they see Katara peering through the dark green glass and she signs to Aang, asking if Korra’s alright. He signs back that she is. Korra flattens her expressions in that _I’m right in front of you guys. Gross_ \- way.

He smiles when Katara gives him the thumbs up and ushers the brother-sister cabins into the kitchens. Then he whips around and considers Katara with a pensive arch of his brows.

“Can you keep a secret?” he quickly asks.

“Uh…” Korra drones in thought, then says, “Honestly, probably not.”

Aang laughs. At least the girl is honest. “I think I’ll tell you anyways - but you know how Katara and I were dating for a while?”

“Yeah,” she grumbles despite wanting to say, “Ugh,” and visibly wary of what he might say next.

Then he hits her with, “Well, we’re ... _not_ anymore.”

Korra looks at him, her eyes wide, unforgivingly and brutally sincere about her level of shock. “But you guys are always hugging and laughing and calling each other, “Honey’ and ‘Platy-bear’ and other gross things. Ugh, it’s _so_ gross.”

Aang cannot help but chuckle a bit. He likes Korra’s belligerent sense of humor - she is unapologetic for many things, but it is part of her charm.

“Well, we don’t anymore,” he gives with a shrug.

The truth of the matter seems to collide into her like a body hitting the water in a fumbled dive.  The two have stopped calling each other those vomit-inducing nicknames, now that she’s thinking of it.

“But...but you guys are still good friends?” Korra comments, confused and deliberate. “I mean, it took me a whole year away from Mako to get over that whole fustercluck-”

Aang opens his mouth to comment on her choice of language, but since it technically is not a swear word, he lets it go.

“Yeah,” he starts, caught in some wistful state, “It was really hard at first and granted, it took me a good year too. But, it doesn’t change the fact that she and I were good friends first and that our partnership works. So, do you think you could give it a try? Even if it’s tough?”

It is a challenge, not that Korra ever backed down from one.

But she had been so content to avoid Asami for the rest of the summer. She did not want to deal with any of the stuff that happens when it’s just the two of them. It might be even worse with Mako there. Korra sighs, wondering what her answer should be.

“I’ll be right here, through all of it,” he provides. “If you want.”

Before even sharing his gaze, Korra knows that his eyes will show how profoundly sincere he is and how he will stand by this promise. That kind of face on anyone else, Korra would think they were being sarcastic or pitying.

But Aang is just like that - genuine and sweet to the core, like a piece of good fruit. He can be the _goodiest_ goody-two-shoes of all time, but he is also the one person Korra trusts the most.

Katara is cool, sure, but Korra wouldn’t trust her with absolutely everything. But then again, maybe not Aang with completely everything either. But through this, he can at least help through this.

So she promises him that she’ll try and they head back into the Mess Hall to help out with dinner since it’s their cabins’ turn.

She pinballs through the tables, bursts through the swing door, and meets Bolin in the kitchen as he drools over the peach cobbler dish he is supposed to be delivering to the counter.

“So it’s not Aang and Katara,” she tells him surreptitiously.

“What?” he asks, snapping out of his dessert-hungry haze.

“It wasn’t Aang and Katara that I heard,” she whispers again, grabbing a tray of string beans and walking them from the prep tables to the front. He follows her, now following her line of conversation.

“Really?” he questions, caught up in the intrigue.

“Yeah, they broke up,” she reveals, hoping to generate the same amount of shock that hit her, as they set the trays down and walk to the back to get more.

“What? No!” he gasps, dumbfounded.

“I know, right?”

“Aww, but they were so cute together.”

“You mean so gross together, right? Bleh,” she sticks out her tongue and grimaces. She’ll need to update her theory map that she has been writing in the back of her spiral notebook that’s hidden in between the edge of her bunk and the wall.

And then the quest to find out which counselors were screwing will have to take a step back.

She has ICC week to prepare for.


	2. Chapter 2

The Thursday and Friday before the actual ICC + Full Moon Festival are devoted to training and prep. So those days, Korra has to go to the Fire Scouts base since it has the actual obstacle course structures used for the event.

Counselor Suki, the leader of Cabin Kyoshi and the Martial Arts director, is the one who supervises the CA campers involved in that particular event and so takes her, a kid named Tahno - who Korra hates, and a Kyoshi girl named Reina to the FS base on a canoe.

At the FS docks, she sees the bright green and silver canoes of the Zaofu Camp already there. Korra immediately searches for Asami and when she spies the tell-tale hair, she nearly leans out of the canoe to call out her name. But the excitement instantly burns away when she sees that Asami is talking to and hugging Mako.

Her insides clench and she slouches back in a frustrated huff.

“What?” Tahno teases, “Don’t see your boyfriend?”

“Shut up, Tahno,” Korra snaps back.

“Nice words, kids,” Counselor Suki chides as the stern stabs the sand. Various Fire Scouts and Hearth leaders come over to pull their canoe further onto the beach while Korra and her campmates hop onto the land.

“Korra!” Asami hails from a few yards down, bounding to her across the sands, looking like she’s in a hair commercial.

Korra has a love-hate relationship with Asami’s prettiness. It definitely is something that grates on her self-consciousness, but Korra cannot help but appreciate the effortless and humble beauty that Asami possesses.

Asami is also amazing at everything else, so there’s that.

Asami is a year and a half older than Korra and is already going to be a senior in high school this coming semester, at sixteen.

When Korra started attending the Middle School camps and met Mako, he and Asami were already dating. But Korra had seen Mako compete in the Middle School ICC, for the obstacle course, which ends with a scavenger hunt and his slip of paper told him to grab someone with cool hair.

And he grabbed Korra. 

He grabbed _her_.

Out of all the other impressionable middle school girls, he singled her out with her SWT braids, took her hand, pulled her to the stage where the judges signed her off for his team’s win.

Then as the crowd cheered, Mako leaned in and whispered, “Thanks.”

So, of course, she fell in love.

What else is an innocent sixth grader supposed to do? He thought her hair was cool!

She spent the entire year, pining and fantasizing about the upcoming summer. There might definitely be a few embarrassing diary entries featuring Mako and his abs and arms.

But that next summer was when Korra learned about Asami and met Bolin, who apparently fell in love with _her_.

So, yes, shit hit the fan, like in episode three of any Korean drama. Though, in this particular case, it was a pie and an unfortunate bird that hit the fan, which left the CA Mess Hall in stains and feathers that took hours to clean up. That was the grand finale of the “Crush Catastrophe” of ‘16.

Thankfully, there is a whole academic year between summers.

The summer before high school, though, she and Mako did become a camp item. But soon, Korra learned that fantasy-Mako and reality-Mako are different in all the wrong ways.

Eventually, her frustrations led her back to Asami who shared her considerable observations on Mako’s character, and seemingly lack thereof. And when they would bitch-slap Mako with their words (but not really, they would just comment on his awkwardness), they eventually became actual friends.

In fact, even Mako turned out to be a much better friend than a boyfriend to either of them.

But now, _now_ , this is weird.

“Hey,” Asami mutters with stars in her eyes and songs in her voice. Then wraps Korra in a hug and she smells like sunscreen and lavender. Which is so much better than how Korra probably smells (sunscreen, DEET mosquito repellent, and lake stuff). “I can’t wait for this - I’m so excited.”

“Uh _yeah_ , me too.”

“Hey, Korra,” Mako says, coming up to them, looking inexplicably bored and excited to see her.

“Hey,” she replies, hoping they won’t notice how specifically curt she is being. But they share a look.

Thankfully, Counselor Suki approaches with a boisterous, “Alright, let’s head over to the obstacle courses.” She turns to Asami and asks, “Where’s your counselor?”

“Oh, Sokka’s at the office already. He said he needed to talk to Scoutmaster Zuko about something,” Asami provides.

Suki takes that in with a quick nod. “Cool, hey, Onji?” She swerves around and calls out.  

Hearth Leader Onji - who is probably the cutest person in the entire world, despite being old (she’s like _21_ ) - turns to them from her conversation with a Fire Scout that Korra doesn’t know. “Yea?” she asks back.

“Do you mind taking the kids to the Obstacle Course? I need to - uh- talk to Sokka about something.”

“Don’t mind at all,” Onji returns with a large, adorable, toothy smile. She really is cute. She’s the Hearth leader nearly every female Fire Scout tries to get, because the others are a little _frightening_.

“Hey, is Onji still dating Hide?” Korra suddenly sparks with that plague of intrigue, asking Mako with quiet excitement.

“No, they broke up last year,” Mako mutters back. _Aw man_. Who did Korra hear then?  

“Thank God. He’s kinda a dick,” Asami scowls as they follow the group to the FS courses.

“Okay,” Korra mumbles, in disbelief, “How would you know?”

“He was always so controlling during group events. He wouldn’t let her talk to _any_ other guy,” Asami explains, not picking up on Korra’s attempt at negging, a grimace on her face as she looks at HL Onji’s form at the front of their migrating group.

“Huh,” Korra mutters, catching onto how seriously Asami felt about this. The strands of thoughts and intended actions suddenly fall away.

“You okay?” Asami asks, immediately switching gears and attention to her, peering over with that on-brand and towering tallness.

“Just kinda tired,” Korra grumbles out while stuffing her hands in the pockets of her gym shorts.

“Oh, okay, well, if you ever want to talk - about anything, I’m just one obnoxious canoe ride away,” Azami offers, with a sweet smile at the end.

“Heh,” Korra chortles, genuinely touched and amused, while they walk through the military-esque campgrounds of the Fire Scouts. “Thanks. I’ll - I’ll keep you posted.”

“Cool.”

The Fire Scout base takes up space on a small peninsula that sticks out into the lake, with beach sands making up most of its boundaries until you walk inland. Unlike the sprawling infrastructure of Camp Avatar, the FIre Scouts employ a measured grid system with their offices in the dead center. Their obstacles courses, however, are situated on the Northwest beaches.

When they arrive at the courses, Scout Master Zuko is already there.

SM Zuko was Mako’s Hearth Leader for many years until he rose in the ranks and became Scout Master. And Korra spent some time with him, when he oversaw the obstacle courses for the Middle School tracks last summer, she always thought he was kinda cool and it's general knowledge among the three camps that he is _hot_ \- in more ways than one. Hot-bod, hot-tempered, and a hot-head, Zuko seems like the last person on earth to become a “dork.”

“Alright,” he commands over to them, a clipboard in his hands, getting to business right away. “For this year, the obstacle course will still be a relay, and the structures have been divided into three sections. First is the 60-meter sprint leading into a monkey rig. Then the rock wall and lily pads; then the rope crawl and barrel rolling; which then leads to the final scavenger hunt.”

Then Hearth Leader Onji joins him on stage and further explains, “So meet with your groups, for now, to discuss who does what and be sure to submit the order to us by the end of the session. We'll do the first run-through in ten minutes.”

“I want to do the rock wall,” Korra immediately announces, whipping around to face Mako and Asami.

“I was actually just going to suggest that,” Asami laughs, in that slow-mo montage way, all pristine and in 1080 HD. "You've got much better balance than either of us." 

 _God. This sucks,_ Korra thinks to herself as emotions sucker-punch her in the gut.

“Great, then Asami, you probably should do the first two," Mako says with a pensive nod, all seriousness. Then he goes off to tell the Hearth Leaders while Asami and Korra go off to take their places for the first run-through. 

* * *

While waiting for Asami at the bottom of the rock wall, Korra bends down to tie her laces and hears Scoutmaster Zuko say, “I think your sister still hates me.”

She flinches at first, then slowly creeps around the wall to see him with Counselor Sokka a yard or so away, just behind a line of trees and wild shrubbery.

“ _What_?” goes Sokka’s distinctive articulation. “Noooo, Katara doesn’t hate anybody.”

There’s a loaded pause.

“Okay, she still might have some strong feelings in your direction - but that just means she cares?” he tries to sound positive but the upward lilt implies a lot of uncertainty.

The two are walking on the path that circles the entire camp, literally three and a half feet from Korra’s new hiding spot in the bushes.

“Her ignoring me every time we hang out together suggests otherwise, Sokka.”

“Yeah well it’s uh - huh...she does, huh? I mean, after what you did for us, though, you guys were fine, weren’t you?”

She hears Zuko sigh. _Where is normal Zuko? Normal Zuko doesn’t sigh._ “I guess I thought we were good but-”

“Did you do something?"

“No!” _Ah, there he is._

“Well, before she’d at least verbally hate you and now, huh - I should talk to her - or Aang, he might know-”

“It’s alright,” Zuko says quickly, _too quickly._

“Oh, but that reminds me, could you cover for me tomorrow? I want to take Suki to the theater.”

 _OH. MY. GOSH. This is it_ , Korra revels internally.

Zuko groans, “Dude.”

“No! Trust me - she is into _this_ -” Korra can vaguely make out Sokka gesturing to himself. “We just need time.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about you making me purposefully third-wheel with Mr. Goody-Goody and the one person who hates me more than my own dad.”

“Aww Zuko, man, I don’t hate you.” The figure of Sokka then drapes himself over Zuko.

“Get off, Sokka.”

“But I will if you don’t do this for me.”

The sound of the buzzer for the first run-through of the course sounds off into the air as Zuko bellows, “Ugh - fine!”

“Yay! Oh, you can take Onji! She can be a _nice_ buffer. You know, like another nice person to buffer between you and Katara.”

Korra hears Zuko sigh again. “Yeah, sure, fine.”

Then Sokka whoops into the air and Korra needs to know more - she's got to catch these fuckers in the fucking act ( ~~of fucking~~ ).

But someone behind her says, “Hey, Watertribe, you done pissing in the bushes?”

Korra screws her eyes shut in a grunt and a grit of her teeth, then revolves in the dirt to glare at Tahno, because, _of course_ , it’s Tahno and he’s cackling at his own joke. And even though Tahno is Watertribe too, Korra knows a racially-charged insult when she hears one.

It’s because he’s Northern and she’s Southern.

She bounds back to the bottom of the wall and states, “Thanks,” grinning gleefully.

His laughter quickly dies. He frowns. “Why?”

“Because that’s Asami and she’s a good ten meters ahead of your sorry excuse for a teammate,” Korra bites back, extending her hand out for the baton right when Asami smacks it down into her palm.

Then Korra speeds up the wall, leaving Tahno behind in her dust.

“Eat shit, Tahno,” Korra jeers from the top of the wall, before jumping down and hearing Asami say, “Oh, no wonder you’re so thin.”

Korra chuckles to herself as she hits the ground and starts for the pool of large floating foam pads. Then, just as the sole of her sneaker hits the first pad, she thinks, _No wonder I like her_.

And she slips into the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol ok thanks for giving this a chance - it ails me that there isn't a Zutara Camp AU and that is just a sin. So I played around with the concept a bit and I loved the idea of starting off with Korra's POV and her struggles with her feelings for Asami and here we are!


End file.
